Typically when a consumer is attending a large event there is difficulty in interacting with the consumer individually and the consumers as a whole. Consumers typically utilize their phones, which have mobile applications, voice, and text messaging capabilities but because of a limited number of cell towers near the venue of the event, consumers are often unable to connect or obtain any decent level of service during the event. This is because the cell towers only permit a limited number of simultaneous connections and when the upward limit is close to being reached, the level of service for all those consumers that were able to successfully connect is substantially degraded. In most cases, the consumers just put their phones away during the event.
Still, retailers try as best they can to engage the consumers through interactive Tweets™, scoreboard trivia, or games managed by event personnel through cameras and microphones. But because of the technical difficulties in directly interacting with the consumer, this interaction has limited participation and provides the retailers with only a minimal amount of coarse-grain information about the consumers as a whole at the event without any ability to directly discern responses from particular consumers.
Additionally because cell connectivity is sparse at these events, most consumers at the event do not even attempt to engage. Furthermore, phones in a crowd are hard to get out of one's pocket or coat and most consumers do not even attempt to participate.
However, these events have a potential to provide a wealth of information to retailers about the type of consumer, who is willing to pay for expensive tickets and travel to the event while battling congested traffic to the event and back home after the event.